A small country church in a farm community near here made Arkansas State Baptist Convention history when it opened its rolls this month to 10 Negroes.

At Little Rock, Dr. B. H. Duncan, editor of the Arkansas Baptist, said he believed the Oak Grove congregation is the first racially mixed membership in an and Arkansas church affiliated with the State Baptist Convention.

Oak Grove Baptist Church , about, five miles north of here, invited a Negro minister, the Rev. A. Garland of Kennett, Mo., to conduct community revival services and to baptize four of the 10 new Negro members.

It is reportedly the first revival |conducted  for negroes or  any denomination in the Paragould area in 65 years.

East Side Baptist Church of Paragould furnished the pulpit, pews and piano. Amos Greer, associational missionary said the Negro members will  be used as the nucleus for the formation of a Negro mission in Paragould.